Bonhoeffer opened with the bad news5: the Protestant church was in its eleventh hour, he said, and it’s “high time we realized this.” The German church, he said, is dying or is already dead. Then he directed his thunder at the people in the pews. He condemned the grotesque inappropriateness of having a celebration when they were all, in fact, attending a funeral: “A fanfare of trumpets is no comfort to a dying man.” He then referred to the day’s hero, Martin Luther, as a “dead man” whom they were propping up for their selfish purposes. It was as if he’d thrown a bucket of water on the
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